542 
THE ANTIQUITIES 
[LETT. 
date the 8tli day of June, in the year of our Lord 148G, and in 
the second year of his pontificate, confirmed what had been done, 
and suppressed the convent. 
Thus fell the considerable and well endowed Priory of Sel- 
borne after it had subsisted about two hundred and fifty-four 
years ; about seventy-four years after the suppression of Priories 
alien by Henry V., and about fifty years before the general dis- 
solution of monasteries by Henry VIII. The founder, it is 
probable, had fondly imagined that the sacredness of the in- 
stitution, and the pious motives on which it was established, 
might have preserved it inviolate to the end of time — yec 
it fell, 
" To teach us that God attributes to place 
No sanctity, if none be thither brought 
By men who there frequent, or therein dwell." 
Milton's " Paradise Lost." 
LETTEE XXV. 
Wainfleet did not long enjoy the satisfaction arising from this 
new acquisition ; but departed this life in a few months after he 
had effected the union of the Priory with his late founded col- 
lege ; and was succeeded in the see of Winchester by Peter 
Courtney, some time towards the end of the year 1486. 
In the beginning of the following year the new bishop released 
the president and fellows of Magdalen College from all actions 
respecting the Priory of Selborne ; and the prior and convent 
of St. Swithin, as the chapter of Winchester cathedral, confirmed 
the release.^ 
N. 293. " Relaxatio Petri epi Win ton Eicardo Mayew, 
Presidenti omnium actionum occasione indempnitatis sibi debite 
pro unione Prioratus de Selborne dicto collegio. Jan. 2. 1487. 
et translat. anno 1°." 
IST. 374. " Eelaxatio frioris et convenhis S*^ Swithini Win- 
ton confirmans relaxationem Petri ep. Winton." 1487. Jan. 13. 
^ The bishops of Winchester were patrons of the Priory. 
